Home algae production

[deragt]

What is needed to grow algae and produce biodiesel?

I am looking for a list of items so that I can estimate costs...


Thanks/Regards

[asavedlabrat]

Here is something that I am going to try small scale to see if it will work. All it will require is plastic sheeting, a little fertilizer, and dirt. My thought is that in a stagnant pond only the top inch or two will receive enough sunlight to allow the algae to prosper. One could easily use dirt to produce a 2-4 inch levee as the perimeter of the algae pond. After the small levee is built one would then drape the clear plasic sheeting over this levee and create a small holding pond that will only be around 3 or 4 inches deep. Once the holding pond is created, I would use a little phosphate fertilizer blend to add to the water. I would then inoculate the holding pond with the proper strain of algae. To reduce contamination after the pond has been filled I would take another clear plastic sheet and drape over the entire pond. One could make easy modifications to handle events like rainfall or etc by simply having a pole in the middle, dirt berm, or etc to allow it to runoff. May also have to provide a way for the heat to escape since the top layer of plastic sheeting may create a small greenhouse effect. Once the algae bloom has reached its potential, the top sheet could simple be removed and the pond allowed to dry. This is only a brainstorm session but it would be interesting to see if one could make it work.

If one wanted to increase output one would want to use a deeper pond, but the only way this would work effectively is if the entire pond was somehow perculated and mixed to allow all layers proper exposure to sunlight. Maybe fiberoptics or clear glass tubes could be scattered strategically about to ensure sunlight reaches lower levels.

I'm definately not an expert and everything above might not work but it might be worth a try.

[Howard]

http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/making-algae-biodiesel.html?gclid=CJyeoti60ZQCFQlqsgodyT7qkQ

Just found reference to this book. Does anyone have this book or have you seen it? Maybe at a public library?

[hogg]

On the question: "What is needed to start....?" I just got this from ALG1.
He says this outfit has everything you need to get started. He used them and I am soon. http://www.aquaticeco.com/

I still have a question on what to do, or how to handle the 'stuff' that grow's, and how to actually turn that into a burnable liquid known as Diesel. I need that answer before I start the project. Help!


asavedlabrat, your idea sounds good. I had so many questions when I read it, I got kinda emotionally tired. There were so many choices in there.

My Suggestion to keep the Temp up in your shallow pond...
Since your gonna have to build this pond and make a dirt levee from the start, why not 'insulate' the pond itself from the Earth below, and it's temperature and other environmental fluctuations.
Start with a layer of Styrofoam insulation. Dig the foundation into any shape you want and line the hole with Foam. Either a single layer of 2" or a double layer of 4". Make the Foam tightly fitted to each other.
That should keep ol' man winter's influence out of the mix.

Then line the Foam with a good Black Visqueen. Six mil ought to do the job. That will keep unwanted growths and other 'wild life' from your mix, as well as hold the Smelly 'old' water in place until you are ready to change it out.
Put your Dirt on top the Visqueen.
Now you have an environmentally controlled pond.

I think you are right about the 2" of water being enough. However there may be some Chemists who know more about that. Maybe the Water needs to be a little deeper to provide more Oxygen to the growth? I dont know....just musing.

Now for the Clear Visqueen Bird Poop shield.
Good Idea. There are some choices there, and I dont have any idea which choices would be best. There is some ultra-clear, almost like glass, but it can get brittle and fall to pieces in the sun. Oh well! Maybe you'll have to change it out every so often?
How about Glass? Maybe a sheet of glass from the local Glazier would be even better.
Installed at a slant, the glass would be easy to wash the Bird Poop, dust and pollon off with a hose.

Another thought just popped into my head. You may want to surround this Algae factory with some ordinary Houshold window Screen. Bug screen. Cheap and easy to work with, and it should let air throgh and keep some Algae distorting vermin out.

Thermal furnace.
If you put up a sheet of Clear visqueen over the pond. Any fluid is going to rise. It will collect under the sheet of Clear visqueen.
If you give the Visqueen some angle, the droplets will run down the angle to the lowest point. If you want the Evaporate to go back into the pond, put a sharp stick hanging down at the low point. The droplets will run right on down the stick and drop back into the pond.

For temp control of the Algae pond.
During WWII the Brits in N. Africa put up a tent to live in, then put up another tent over the top of the 'house' and would spray water under the upper 'fly' and that dropped the temp inside the 'house' by 10 to 20 degrees. The constant wind going between the House and the Fly and the Water caused some convection, similar to your AC evaporator.
You may have to set a $10 Fan out there. You could get real fancy and put a thermo-switch down in a stretegic place to turn on the fan when needed.

I cooled some meat this way. It might work for the Algae as well.
I made a tent (actually a big tube) to hang the meat in. Visqueen was great stuff to work with there.
I put a $10 fan at one end of the tent, drawing the air from across the meat and out!

At the inlet end of the tent, I made the Hole a lot smaller than the Fan circumference.
The Air pressuer was a lot less inside the tent, so the air temp was a lot less too.

The meat stayed below 40 degrees even though the outside temp was up in the 50's some times.

Yes! I had a good idea, but it required some more adjustments from time to time. The outside air pressure kept sneaking in through holes in my Visqueen. I used a lot of clear celephane 2" tape on that project.
Also I had to re-inforce my small round inlet hole with some stiff wire and tie it off to keep the Fan from sucking it in with the meat.
That's the way things are done when you stop short of your engineering degree.

[alg1]

http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-refining5.htm
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7241e/w7241e0h.htm#TopOfPage

[servant74]

You could use a similar trick to what
http://www.globalgreensolutionsinc.com/ ... oTimes.pdf
these folks are doing. Basically take a couple of plastic sheets, heat seal the edges and make 'pipes' that will allow fluid to flow from the top to the bottom.
Hang them in the sunlight, and pump your algae solution into the top, and let it drain back into your basin, to be cooled/heated, pick up nutrients, have air pumped through it, then back through the 'baggies'.

These folks seem to be serious for commercial use, but there is no reason for personal use you can't use some of their ideas.

Also, I like the idea of running your circulating pumps from solar cells. If the sun is out, the pump runs, if their is no sun, it automatically drains back into your sump. But you might want 'outside' electricity to pump the air through, as this is the source for both CO2, and air for respiration.

The sump also makes a convenient single place to 'harvest' algae, put in nutrients, add some water, check the PH and nutrient levels, etc. It might be easier to keep a watch on the temperature of the aquaculture too!

The plastic sheet doesn't have to be real expensive. I am guessing 4 to 8 mil would work well, very thin would be hard to keep doing well. I understand that UV light can kill the algae, if that is true, you might want a UV reducing plastic too.

What do you think?

[Howard]

I have doubts about Valcent's claims of 100,000 gallons per acre, but perhaps it's possible with their vertical hanging bags? Those bags convert a 2 dimension area of flat surface into a 3 dimension area of cubic surface, so perhaps within the surface area of each bag, production is still only so much per square foot (or meter) but they greatly expand the effective area with those bags?

But assuming this were the case (100,000 gallons per acre), that is 2.3 gallons per square foot. Back that down to 2 gallons per square foot and consider that the rooftop of a 1,400 sf home could be producing 2,800 gallons per year. Drive a pair of diesel burning cars that get 50 mpg some 20,000 miles each, the two cars would consume 800 gallons, leaving you 2,000 gallons for home heating oil (heat and hot water). If the flue for the heat and hot water boilers (same device) were to be vented back through the bags, you pump the CO2 back through them.

A lot of older homes and commercial buildings were designed with flat roof structures, but have since had pitched roofs grafted onto them. We could go back to the flat roof designs, but put these greenhouses above them instead of the pitched roof.

Use the bags, sumps and pumps that Servant suggests and this starts looking like a viable system. All depends on the reality of what it will produce. See above.

[hogg]

I'd question the Baggies material. I've had plastic come apart, shatter, from being out in the sunlight.

I'm still confused about what to do with the Algae to make fuel out of it?

[alg1]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1424018/l ... een_fuels/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_distillation

http://www.practicalchemistry.org/exper ... 42,EX.html

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/09/ ... is=XL#qdig

Here's some setups,at 100c all the water takes the energy away and it stays a little below 100c at the outlet,the temp drops until the batch retains more heat,then at 150c gasoline,then temp drops til 250c diesel,all the b.s. about catalyst can be purchased as cleaning steel wool,temp determines cracking,catalyst just assist,becareful of gas it will explode,but the gas can power the process with a simple return loop.

This guy did not watch the temp and had water mixed in his wood bio oil,GOOD LUCK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNFYEHz79WM

[brittanylove]

Hello all,
I am new here and very interested.
Has anyone tried the plastic bag idea? Or further contemplated it?
I would imagine it is heavy, and would need a strong seal.
I am interested in re-creating the idea. It makes sense, to have the water constantly circulating so the algae would have proper sunlight exposure.
I don't know, it's worth a shot.
Also, I wanted to buy some samples and was wondering where all of you got some?

Thanks. Any advice is wonderful.
Brittany